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Spare us from bureaucrats who mean well. In the name of saving lives, The National Transportation Safety Board wants to ban drivers from using cellphones and other hands-free devices. So long, Bluetooth earpieces and in-dash hands-free modules. This would be an all-out-ban on mobile telephones used by the driver. The data and trend lines behind Tuesday’s proposal may have some merit. But the law of unintended consequences suggests the feds will only make things worse. Here are five ways ways the Obama administration is creating a mess that a cellphone ban won’t solve.

1. Prohibition doesn’t work. It didn’t work with alcohol. The jury is out on keeping drugs illegal when the demand is so great it warps our economy (quick, what’s California’s No. 1 cash crop? Hint: It’s not legal and may help with glaucoma), affects our politics (anti-Taliban opium growers are our friends), and kills people caught in the cross-fire. But scientists and bureaucrats think they can make a cellphone ban work.

2. Only some people will abide by a no-drivers-with-cellphones edict. Others, probably the majority, will use their cellphones now and then, put them on speakerphone, stick them in a cup holder and duck their heads down to talk when call quality is poor. That’s probably worse that keeping your eyes on the road and hearing a crystal clear (relatively) call come through the car’s speakers. When people think laws are stupid, they’ll ignore them and then start to ignore other almost-as-dumb laws.

3. Other distracted driver scenarios get a pass. Everything about driving is distracting: tuning the radio, talking to a passenger, turning around to swat an unruly child, thinking about whether you’ll have a job next year, glancing at your new girlfriend with the hot tank top. The all-time most distracting situations are dropping a lighted cigarette in your lap (less than a fifth of adults now smoke) and a bee buzzing around in a moving car. Maybe require owners to cover cars with mesh netting if they park with the windows open?

4. New life for the wingnuts. Just as the Tea Party is losing steam, an issue comes along that makes them and others wonder how intrusive our government has become. The US says the 50 states make the call on this, but that’s just not so: As it did with the 21-year drinking laws in the 1980s and the 55 mph speed limit in the 1970s, the US government tells the states they’re free to set the law any way they choose — but if the states don’t mandate 21 years and 55 mph (later rescinded), then the feds withhold gasoline tax transfer payments back to the states. States-righters do have some good points. If Roger Ailes wanted to pump Fox News ratings, he couldn’t have asked for more help from the Obama administration than he’s getting this week.

5. No effort towards long-term solutions. Teens and young adults are most at risk for all kinds of car accidents and most at risk for distracted driving. (Seniors, too.) Serious driver education remains untaught in most American schools. AIDS gets more attention from schools. The risks from cars are greater. And police traffic work more often is revenue collection, working from fixed-location radar traps, than patrolling for all kinds of hazards. Mayors could start by telling police chiefs to tell their patrol officers to ticket flagrant violators of existing hands-free laws. Maybe town weeklies could publicly shame scofflaws by publishing their names.

Here’s the irony: Driving has never been safer. The traffic fatality rate is down 25% since 2005 (coinciding, oddly, with the rise of mobile cell phones in cars). It’s one-fifth what it was in the 1950s and 1960s in the era before seat belts. We are on the cusp of a statistical milestone: less than one death per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. It was 1.09 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled last year. (200 lifetimes of driving for the average person, a lot more if you’re sober and belted in.) Safer cars and fewer people drinking and driving account for the vast majority of improvement.

Technology has the ability to make cars safer still. Imagine a Siri-like add-on to the car dashboard that actually works, unlike much of today’s voice recognition systems, and reduces the amount of time you spend fiddling with navigation systems or finding an alternate route when there’s an accident on the highway. Caused by you know what…

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